Market & legal data in the tobacco alternatives sector in Austria

20th February 2025: EU, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia: The comments and detailed opinions provided by the European Commission, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Greece and Italy on the Austrian TRIS notification 2024/0610/AT have been published. The standstill period of the notification, which concerns an Austrian ordinance specifying prohibited substances in tobacco products and e-liquids, has been extended to 8th May based on the comments raised. All commenting countries argue that a ban on glycerol, proposed by the Austrian ordinance, would, in addition to going beyond EU requirements, result in a de facto ban on all e-liquids since glycerol is an essential ingredient in the manufacture of e-liquids and an important additive in tobacco products. This would effectively make the manufacture of vaping products technically unfeasible.
13th February 2025: Austria: An agreement to reach a government coalition between the Freedom Party of Austria (right) and the Austrian People's Party (centre-right) after the September 2024 elections has failed, press reports. The failure to reach an agreement may result either in another election, in a new attempt from centrist parties – namely the Social Democratic Party of Austria (centre-left), the Austrian People's Party and the NEOS party (centre) – to reach a government agreement (though they failed to do so last month) or in the appointment of an expert or transitional government by the president of Austria. As shown in our Policy Radar, a rightist coalition in Austria could be a more positive development for the industry than a leftist one.
29th January 2025: Austria: Martin Busch, the head of the Addiction Competence Centre at Gesundheit Österreich GmbH (GÖG) – the Austrian National Public Health Institute – has warned that the sharp decline of smoking rates among teenagers (from 20% of daily users in 2002 to 4% in 2022) is being partially offset by new nicotine products that are marketed as “lifestyle products”. Official data shows that 15% of teenagers use nicotine pouches occasionally, while only 3% use them daily (2% of daily use of e-cigarettes). The GÖG is the institution responsible for researching and planning public healthcare in Austria.
24th January 2025: Austria: The Ministry of Health has presented a bill amending the Tobacco Act to transpose the EU-wide flavour ban on heated tobacco products (HTPs) and to comprehensively regulate nicotine pouches. The bill would make nicotine pouches subject to product restrictions, a maximum nicotine content of 16.69 mg/g, labelling requirements, age, sales and advertising restrictions, and notification requirements. The bill’s chances of success remain unclear, given that a new government is poised to take office following the September 2024 elections.
23rd January 2025: Austria: The outgoing government has published the list of measures that the State Budget 2025 would entail if it obtains parliamentary approval. Among the measures, the outgoing government is planning to introduce a tax on nicotine pouches, the rate of which is unknown, and to raise the heated tobacco tax from 1st July 2025. Nonetheless, the plans from the outgoing government to pass the State Budget 2025 are likely to be abandoned, given that a new government is poised to take office following the September 2024 elections.
12th December 2024: Austria: The head of the tobacco monopoly administration, Hannes Hofer, expressed his concern about the lack of taxation on nicotine products, press reports. He also advocates turning the tobacco monopoly into a “nicotine monopoly”, and restricting the sale of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches to tobacconists. “Uncontrolled sales endanger the health of our young people,” Hofer said.
8th November 2024: Austria: The Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection has notified an ordinance to the European Commission’s TRIS database with the list of prohibited ingredients in e-cigarette and heated tobacco products. The list is already published informatively on the ministry’s website, but the intention of the notification is to create legal certainty for manufacturers, importers and distributors that the ingredients listed are prohibited and subject to the legally standardised ban.
24th October 2024: Austria: The Tax and Customs Authority has told TobaccoIntelligence that €12.5m was raised in tax revenue from heated tobacco in 2021, €28.7m in 2022 and €38.6m in 2023.
9th October 2024: Austria: Following the EU’s proposal for the revision of the 2009 Council recommendation on smoke-free environments to extend the existing restrictions to novel inhalable products and to introduce new areas in which their consumption would be prohibited, members of Parliament (MPs) from all parties spoke out against further bans. The Greens (a member of the coalition government), the Social Democratic Party and NEOS - The New Austria and Liberal Forum (opposition parties) all stressed that a reduction in the number of smokers is desirable, but this must be achieved through information and awareness work and not through bans, press reports. Johannes Rauch, the minister of health, said that the next important step is to regulate nicotine pouches and other similar new tobacco and nicotine products.
30th September 2024: Austria: The far-right Freedom Party (FPO) has won the elections with 28.8% of the vote and will now have to form a coalition government. The party has traditionally been vocal against restrictions on tobacco products and e-cigarettes, arguing for freedom of choice rather than for state intervention in the sector.
5th August 2024: Austria: The Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection has published a fact sheet on the use of new nicotine products. The document shows that heated tobacco is used daily or almost daily by 2.1% of Austrians aged 15 and over, while 1.1% use nicotine pouches. It concludes that, although the increase in the use of nicotine products is partially compensated for by their use in the cessation of daily cigarette smoking, they are also being used by young people to start using nicotine. The ministry considers the high prevalence of the use of nicotine pouches, especially among young people, to be problematic from the point of view of health, addiction prevention and addiction treatment.
4th July 2024: Austria: Following other federal states, including Upper Austria and Salzburg, the Styrian state parliament has banned nicotine pouches for under-18s and approved an age-verification mechanism. State councillor Simone Schmiedtbauer said: “As early as 2022, 13% of young people said they had consumed nicotine pouches or similar products in the past month. We are now putting a stop to this in Styria – for the sake of the health of our youngest.”

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